ChUG in Cytometry

Spatial Biology is an emerging technology that can get a heck of lot confusing for David. When David doesn't understand something, he asks people to help. Be like David. Ask Cezary and Daniel to explains things to you.

The gang is back to discuss all kinds of things happening is Flowland! Ryan Duggan, Bert Ladd, Rebecca Bultema, and that other guy discuss which meetings look good this year, the range of ideas floating around reagents used to clean and maintain instruments, the problem of single stain controls when unmixing data, and careers outside of a flow core.

We continuing our exploration of service contracts in the Flow Cytometry with none other than Ray Lannigan, formerly Vice President of Global Sales and Services at Cytek. We couldn't ask for a better guide to explain the details of service contracts form the industry point of view. Here we discuss how service contracts are priced, what kind of leverage is available to negotiate with manufacturers, the other options for those who may want to look elsewhere for service, tracking service on your instruments, rights to repairs, and many other topics.

'What you don't know is out to kill you' had been the subtitle for the CAT Facility flow basics class for over a decade. It reminds us that the life of a flow cytometrist is filled with peril and danger. One day you're on the top of the world, thinking you know everything about spectral flow. Then some company comes out with a bunch of marketing material and data that make you question all that you ever hold dear. So we invited Ryan Duggan, Dave Adams and Rachael Sheridan to discuss what's going on. We do a review of the current spectral flow platforms on the market, then revisit some eyebrow-raising claims made in marketing material to see how much it hurts that they might be correct.

Ryan ran a discussion on the cell sorters available on the market on the Cytometry on Air podcast, roughly 10 years ago. It's now 2023 and we invited Dave Adams back along with Bill Eades to discuss how things look nowadays. We talked about the premature deployment of cell sorters, ultra-specialization of platforms, and planned obsolescence. We covered the most popular droplet-based platforms available, as well as the microfluidics systems.

We're thrilled to host Tony Leger, Director of Automation Laboratory Technology (ALT), for a discussion on instrument service in the field of Flow Cytometry. If you have frustrations regarding the cost of service contracts, or the difficulty around repairing your own instruments, this discussion should provide some great insights. We're hoping to expand the 'In the Service of Cytoemtry ' series to multiple actors in the field to better understand what is going on, but we wanted to start discussion to begin with the voice of Tony Leger. His care for right to repair and empowering user in fixing their own equipment sets the tone that will lead this series. We name companies during our conversation, and I think we should clarify a few points. Firstly, ChUG is not supported by any specific manufacturers, and the opinions stated here are based on our experience. Secondly, we aim to identify solutions that can be applied in the field to improve the current situation and improve the overall quality of research.

We're back! We wanted to make sense of the numerous imaging flow cytometers that have hit the market over the last few years, notably the Attune CytPix and the BD FACS Discover S8. Ryan Duggan, Director Emeritus Pat Simms, Daniel Vocelle and that other guy discuss the potential use of the technology, and harp on an imaginary Image Stream Cell sorter.

Here at ChUG in Cytometry, we aim to be the most relevant that we can be! This is why we decided to comment on events that have not happened yet! Laura Johnston, Pat Simms, Robot Ryan Duggan and David Leclerc discuss upcoming flow meetings, what's going on at ISAC, cells sorters, David is shilling for industry, and hiring new staff in SRLs. We also say goodbye to Laura who is moving to back to Seattle.

The CAT Facility lost a few instruments due to some water damage a few months ago and we turned to an Insurance Group to help us out. It's not a common situation for anyone (hopefully), so here's some thoughts on our experience and what can be done to avoid it as much as possible.

The gang is back! Pat Simms, Laura Johnston, Ryan Duggan, and that other guy discuss the latest news in the flow cytometry world in this second edition of Chatting Around the Dumpster Fire. They talk about hiring staff, getting back to work in the COVID era, creating online content in flow, the great floods in history, the Quanteon, CYTO 2021 (it seems they didn't see much of it), and the future of cytometry, both spectral and mass.

We host Monica Delay, US Manager for Technical Application Support at Cytek Biosciences, for a discussion on autofluorescence (AF) and the tools to deal with it in Spectral Flow Cytometry. We use figures to showcase some problems with AF which will be missing from this audio version of our talk. You can visit our website at Chugcytometry.com to find the video, along with a list of links to webinars and publications dealing with AF.

Our guest is our very good friend James McCracken. We explore his career path from his post-doc at The University of Chicago, to becoming the Core Facility Director of the University of Louisville Diabetes and Obesity Center, to his current position as the Commercial Marketing Manager with Beckman Coulter Life Sciences. He has been deeply involved in the development of the newly released CytoFlex SRT cell sorter, so we also discuss the ins and outs of flow cytometry instrumentation development in industry.

Our guests this week are Kathy Daniels, Derek Davies, and Rui Gardner. You will recognize them from the work they have done in training Flow Cytometry users over the year. They have also developed an impressive amount of online content during the pandemic, including the OpenFlow Cytometry series available on YouTube. We sat down to discuss the ins and outs of online training, the opportunities and pitfalls that we have experienced, and some of the features that could stay with us once we are back in a normal environment.

This is a reunion episode of kind! Our guest is Julie Auger, Executive Director of the RCFP at UCDavis, but also the architect of the Office of Shared Research Facilities at the UoC. And the co-founder of ChUG itself!! It a pleasure to host Julie as we discuss the early days of the OSRF, and the model of centralized administration for core facilities. Visit us at chugcytometry.com for more discussions.

In this episode, we sit with Dr. Pratip Chattopadhyay, Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Director of the Applied Immunology Core at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, to discuss his paradigm breaking work in flow cytometry, immunology and insights into career development for us all. Visit us at ChUGCytometry.com for more discussions.

We’re hosting President and Founder of De Novo Software, David Novo, and Cytek Application Scientist, Geoff Kraker, to discuss analysis software tools from turn of the century to present day.